Monday, August 17, 2015

Early Breakfast

Market Basket remains among the lowest-priced options of the major supermarket chains in the Boston area, but is still more expensive than several no-frills discount outlets that have opened in the state in recent years, according to a survey by a consumer activist.

Edgar Dworsky, who runs the site ConsumerWorld.org, sampled a small number of Boston-area supermarkets and found that prices for selected goods at Market Basket had increased 9 percent since his survey a year ago, when the supermarket chain was in the throes of a power struggle within the Demoulas family.

However, much of that increase is attributed to the elimination of a 4 percent automatic discount Market Basket had run at its store for nearly a year.

Prices rose 8 percent at Star Market and 7 percent at Stop & Shop for the products sampled in the survey.

Even so, prices at Market Basket remain much lower than at several of its major competitors. Prices were 29 percent higher at Star Market for the sampled items and 15 percent more at Stop & Shop.

“I did expect some increase, and I’ve heard some muttering from shoppers: ‘Oh, Market Basket prices have gone up,’ ” Dworsky said. “They’re still roughly the same percentage cheaper than Stop & Shop and Shaw’s as they were last year.”

Dworsky compared prices of 16 items — including peanut butter, spaghetti, and ground beef — at those three stores and the discount chains Aldi, Price Rite, and Save-a-Lot, which all had lower prices than the major chains.

However, the survey is far from comprehensive. It does not include prices at other major supermarket chains, including Roche Bros., Hannaford Bros., Wegmans, and Whole Foods because those stores are in different areas and attract a different kind of customer, said Dworsky, who collected the pricing information himself.

Meaning it's a $hit study, sorry, and an excuse to rip MB.

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Dworsky acknowledged the survey’s limits and said he was further hampered in conducting price comparisons because he was trying to replicate the shopping he did for a similar survey a year ago, when the work stoppage and consumer boycott left Market Basket stores with few produce items and perishable goods. But he said it gave consumers “a good sense” of how prices on some staple foods had changed.PFFFFFT!

The no-frills chains were 12 to 19 percent cheaper than Market Basket for the items in the survey. Still, those discount chains have few locations in Greater Boston.

“Unless you live near an Aldi, you’ve probably never heard of it,” he said. “Their big attraction is price, price, price. For the most part, no name brands.”

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